Music of the Wild 



florists are a cluster of bare twigs in -winter. When 

 the ])0(ls open, the membranes incashig the seed 

 are bright carmine, exactly the shade of the inner 

 lining of Ebony mus Amcricanus. 



The shrubs and bushes beside these old fences 

 are tenanted from leaf to ground Avith life, and 

 What did a volume of sound arises constantly from earth in 

 Katy do ? j-j^g siuiimcr time. The clearest enunciator and the 

 handsomest insect of all is the katy-did. What a 

 very, very delightful thing it must have been that 

 Katy did! How her descendants rejoice in telling 

 it over and o-s'er. It of necessity had to be some- 

 thing wonderfully fine. In all the world thei'e is 

 not enough rancor to sing of an evil deed adown 

 all time since the morning of creation. But this 

 charming thing that Katy did has been celebrated 

 from the beginning, and will be to the end. Surely 

 it was something big and broad, beneficial to all 

 her race, and the wide world as well — else Avhy are 

 her minstrels forever celebrating her act? It had 

 to be something obvious, too; for while they con- 

 stantly affirm the deed, they never specify just 

 what Avas done, and this neglect must arise from 

 the fact that they suppose all of us kno-w. I be- 

 lieve Katy A\'as the first of her family to discover 

 sound and teach all of lier relatives to voice the 

 fullness of their joy in life on their fiddles in such 

 exquisite measure and inflection that they deceive 

 most of us into thinking it song. To have given 



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